Two filmmakers presented to NIU students a documentary film concerning the civil war in El Salvador, Central America.

“The Situation” was introduced by producer Forrest Jones and photographer Milton Graham.

The filmmakers made a general introduction and explanation about the movie and also answered questions from audience members.

Jones, Graham and the film’s director, Don Gomez, a Vietnam veteran, spent two years shooting the documentary in El Salvador.

Monique Lemaitre, associate professor of foreign language and literature, said the filmmakers lived with a Salvadorian family in a small village in order to interact with and understand the villagers.

Part of the documentary included footage of a trip through the mountains of El Salvador to meet with and interview Guerillas. The film also documented a number of massacres, as well as footage of villages being bombed by the government _incidents which occurred daily, Lemaitre said.

Many participants interviewed in the movie were Vietnam veterans. “They (the filmmakers) tried to make the interviews objective, but the way it is interpreted is up to the viewer,” Lemaitre said.

The film is being shown around the world by Jones and Graham and has won international awards in Berlin.

The presentation of the movie in Sandburg Auditorium was sponsored in part by the John Lennon Society.